


Stray Cat Strut

by Anonymous



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Allusions to Troubled Father/Son Relationship, Catwoman '75, Circumstantial Crossdressing, Fire mention, Improvisation, M/M, Mention of Financial Insecurity, Misplaced Costume, Referenced Eviction, jaydick-flashfic: costume drama, shameless flirting, short and sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 20:44:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21042506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Pressed for time and options, Dick dons a new costume.





	Stray Cat Strut

Dick had one leg through a fourth-floor Manor window when his phone rang.

“Hey, baby,” Dick cooed into his comm, maneuvering into the room in a tight forward roll. He misjudged the distance and bumped his head into a sheet-covered wood deco vanity, which was, for some unfathomable reason, in the middle of the room. “_Ooph_,” Dick grunted on impact.

“Dick?” Jason's voice crackled in Dick’s ear. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” Dick said. “Are you home? What are you wearing?” Dick grimaced and tugged at the tattered edge of one of the several egregious tears his own suit. He didn’t like tossing uniforms, but Victor Zsasz didn’t like using words.

“Christ,” Jason snorted. He paused. “Why’s your reception so shitty? There’s interference or something, I don’t remember your apartment being this… spotty.”

Dick cringed. He’d been evicted from his apartment the week prior for failure to pay rent. Vigilantism didn’t pay, and neither did social work. He’d picked up a few shifts teaching gymnastics, but that wasn’t rent money. It was late-night-fast-food-dates-with-Jason money.

So, Dick had been sleeping in locked rooms at the Manor, the dusty ones that not even Alfred touched with any regularity. It had to be under the table; he wasn’t about to give Bruce the pleasure. Unfortunately, the lesser tread halls of the Manor had horrible reception. 

“Yeah, there’s been construction in the neighborhood,” Dick lied. “It’s interrupting service and… fucking with my hot water. Etcetera.”

“Oh,” Jason said. “I guess that explains the showers at my place.”

Dick scowled. “Maybe I just like being naked and wet around you.”

That did the trick. Jason choked, audibly blushed, floundered, and then politely ended the call.

Dick texted him several saccharine emojis before shucking the rest of his destroyed uniform and bedding down for the night.

He was startled awake only a couple of hours later, his emergency line blaring like a siren.

“I’m up, I’m up,” he grumbled, flicking on his comm as an afterthought. “This is N!” 

“_Morning, Nightwing. There’s a fire downtown and B’s in the sewers. The fire department started it while trying to clear out an Ivy encampment,_” Oracle chirped.

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Dick said, already pushing himself to his feet. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

“_Make it fifteen_!” Oracle said, before cutting the line.

Dick took three deep breaths and then pushed himself to his feet. He stretched, and then reached for his uniform—

which was gone.

Dick let out a terribly pitiful noise and flung himself about the room, upsetting his makeshift bed and ducking under tarps and drop cloths. He was so frantic; he nearly missed the Alfred-sized-shoeprints in the dust on the floorboards. He wished he had.

If Alfred noticed his entrance and took away his uniform for disposal or repairs, Dick wasn’t likely going to get away with slipping out unacknowledged. At least, not with a functional uniform. He had some of his older prototypes in the Cave, but the Cave usually had a Tim, and if not a Tim, then enough surveillance apparatuses to make the FBI salivate.

Dick had one Hail Mary left. The third-floor hall closet usually had a suit or two. Bruce kept at least one of his own there ever since Selina robbed him blind during a house party a few years prior. She’d since learned his identity, but the setup proved useful during fundraising events and so it remained. Dick could snag the spare, assist emergency services, and dump the evidence into one of the family’s shared safe houses.

Silent as an alleycat, Dick slipped from the room and crept down the stairs before ducking into the appropriate hallway. He stuck close to the walls, listening for Alfred or one of the boys. Occasionally, he glanced about the ceiling, Damian was still small enough to fit in some of the vents, but the Manor remained at rest. 

Everything was fine, this was fine, his relationship with Bruce was fine, Bruce’s spare suit would fit Dick just fi—

Dick eased open the closet. Bruce’s suit wasn’t there. Dick frowned at his options, mindful that Alfred could appear at any moment to chide Dick about the sorry states of his suit and dignity.

Dick made his choice, changed, and then absconded through the window.

****

Jason arrived just as the last of the GCFD dispersed from the cleared remnants of their botched effort. He’d been tied up across town when Oracle tapped him, but minutes later she’d managed to dispatch Dick and so Jason had felt comfortable wrapping up his own affairs before heading over for support and, hopefully, an impromptu date.

He’d meant to catch Dick and invite him over to Jason’s to shower off the soot, and then maybe they could order takeout and catch the tail end of a _Twilight Zone_ marathon. But, even though the last of the fire department's taillights were still visible in the distance, Jason couldn’t see Dick’s signature blue amid the orange cones and blocked streets from where he perched on an adjacent high rise. Jason hooked a line into the rooftop ledge and lowered himself to the street, abandoning the line to creep closer to the scene of the extinguished fire.

The ruffle of fabric and a flash of green, shades darker than Robin’s, prompted Jason to freeze. Jason rested a hand on his Colt 1911 and swiveled on his heels, drawing his gun and aiming between a pair of rounded ears.

The figure stilled, and Jason traced his gaze from the awfully soft ears down to wide, blue eyes blinking from behind a half-faced cowl. The figure swallowed hard, and Jason glanced from the figure’s bobbing Adam’s apple to where the figure’s cape clasped to a V-neck so deep that its point rested above the figure’s sternum. The achingly tight dress the figure wore was a deep eggplant, so rich that the fabric nearly disappeared against the inky Gotham night. Slits on either side of the dress’s skirt gaped wide, exposing shapely, chiseled calves and thick, muscular thighs up to the figure’s bare hipbones. Grass green pixie boots adorned the figure’s feet.

Jason holstered his gun.

“Doesn’t that dress come with a belt?” he asked, grateful for the red lenses in his mask that hid his probing gaze. “Fucking shit, Dick, shouldn’t it come with underwear?”

Dick closed his eyes and cursed in a language Jason didn’t understand. “Yeah, uh. The belt didn’t fit.” He opened his eyes and scratched the back of his head. “Selina’s fucking tiny. She hides it in stilettos and faux furs, but she’s got the height and body fat content of a Russian ballerina.”

Jason covered his mouth, which just meant clapping a hand over his facemask. He’d worry about looking silly, if Dick weren’t poured into a dress three sizes too small, with angry red lashes on his exposed legs from where he’d obviously tried to teach himself how to use Selina’s bullwhip on a rooftop somewhere.

No one could sling a whip like Selina could, Jason was appalled Dick’d even made it this far.

“So, the underwear?” Jason asked, voice tight with barely withheld laughter (and maybe a little arousal too.)

Dick scowled. “I’m wearing underwear,” he protested, crossing his arms. The _skrrt_ of tearing fabric across his shoulders prompted Dick to wince and drop his arms. “It’s just, uh. I’m wearing a c-string. To avoid lines. In my suit.”

Jason sat down on the grimy ground, cradling his face to keep from crying. “What,” Jason wheezed, “is a c-string?”

“Listen,” Dick snapped. “Zsasz shredded what I was wearing, and I couldn’t find any of Bruce’s spare suits. Or Robin’s, or Red Robin’s, or yours, or Signal’s. All I found was a closet full of clothes Selina’s left at the manor over the years and a pair of almost-matching shoes I left behind, so I improvised.” He paused, but Jason was still choking on his own laughter, and so he added, “I tried one of the catsuits first, but they’re all leather and PVC. They wouldn’t stretch for shit; I have no idea how the fuck Selina flits around like she does.”

Jason calmed down enough to look up and gesture towards his underarm. “Now that she and Bruce have settled down, she’s resorted to more practical wear. Her suit’s sleeveless, the shoulder piece is part of her cowl. Her shoulders have more movement. Dick, anyone and their mother could catch a glance at your ass right now.”

Dick let out an indignant squawk and twirled, craning his neck to glance over his shoulder at his own backside. “They cannot! And even if they could, I don’t see what the big deal is. I’ve never been impressed.” He stopped twirling long enough to gather up the cape and try again. He glanced up with triumph when he couldn’t, in fact, see his own ass.

Jason wished he had a polaroid of the picture Dick made.

“Goddamn, Goldie, you just look good in everything, don’t you?” Jason cooed. “Though, you ruined Selina’s dress in that smoke. Anyone call you on your bluff?”

Dick dropped his cape. “No. I was careful. Selina won’t notice it missing, it wasn’t the only one in that closet. I’d sure like a shower, though.” Dick smirked and then poured himself onto the ground.

"Dick," Jason warned. "You don't want to be rolling around on the concrete in this city. Also, it still smells like burnt, carnivorous, mutant foilage. None of this is sanitary." 

Dick stretched onto his hands and knees and leaned forward into an arch, his hips raised and chest low. He straightened just enough to crawl forward, towards where Jason still sat sprawled. Jason swallowed.

“You're right, I shouldn't be out in the streets like this. Where _anyone_ could see me." Jason flinched and Dick grinned. "You’d take me home, though, wouldn’t you?” Dick asked.

That did the trick. Jason choked, visibly blushed, floundered, and then politely helped Dick to his feet. After Dick brushed himself off, Jason took off his own jacket to drape over Dick's shoulders, before guiding Dick to his nearest vehicle like an absolute gentleman. 

Dick would have to emulate Selina more often. 

**Author's Note:**

> i don't think selina has ever crawled on her knees like that on a dirty gotham sidewalk for batman, but dick can only go off his own assumptions


End file.
